APCOA ANPR PCN - Hove Station

[AceEagles]

1 Date of the infringement 14th May 2024

2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] 24th May 2024

3 Date received 27th May 2024

4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [Y/N?] No

5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? Yes

6 Have you appealed? [Y/N?] post up your appeal] No

Have you had a response? [Y/N?] post it up N/A

7 Who is the parking company? APCOA Parking (UK) Ltd

8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] Hove Railway Station

For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under. Unsure 

Received this after payment failed to go through on the app.

This has happened before and I don't really want to have to pay these parasites again.

I have not appealed or had any contact since receiving this notice but the payment period runs out in a few days and wanted to know the best plan of action. 

Many thanks!

 

[honeybee13]

Hi.

Thank you for the information we need, the guys in the know should be along later to help you.

In the meantime, your attachment needs some editing please, to keep this anonymous. You need to cover up their reference number and your car reg. It's on their correspondence at least twice and in at least one of the photos.

And please don't appeal to anyone, it usually causes more problems than it solves.

HB

[AceEagles]

Thanks, and done.

[FTMDave]

OK, the legal position is this.

The vast majority of people being pursued by private parking companies have supposedly done something wrong on private land, such a overstaying the time limit in a supermarket car park.  In these cases they can sue someone through the civil courts, and sometimes they do.

Your situation is different.  Railway car parks are covered by criminal bye-laws.  The correct procedure for someone doing something wrong with a car is prosecution in the Magistrates' Court and a fine paid to the state.  In fact APCOA are so stupid that they've admitted this, with reference to "penalty notice", "offence", "bye-laws", "bye-law 14", etc.  They can't sue you for payment.  It is a criminal matter, not a matter for the civil courts.

They come out with the grand apocalyptic threat of starting a private prosecution in the Magistrates' Court.

1.  Private prosecutions are very rare and difficult to bring.

2.  There is no incentive for APCOA to do this as the fine would go to the state, not them.

3.  I've just looked at all our APCOA threads.  They have never sued anyone in civil cases which is extremely easy to do, let alone brought private prosecutions.

It's hot air from paper tigers.  Just ignore them.

[dx100uk]

can you pop your scan of both sides of the PCN up again please

dx

 

[AceEagles]

It's attached... what do you need to see?

Ok, thanks for this and noted.

I am moving house in a couple of months - should I notify them of this?

Is there a limitation period?

I've never had bad credit and a CCJ could jeopardise my job for being a moral hazard.

[honeybee13]

Yes, you should tell them by snail mail if you move, just don't give them your email address.

I think they have six years to pursue this, hopefully they won't.

HB

[lolerz]

Notify them of your new address when you move yes. 

You should do this with all your creditors and twice with the DVLA (once for licence, other for car V5C)

Limitation period is 6 years for private cases. 

Don't worry about a CCJ. They're a punishment from the court. For that you'd have to:

Get a letter of Claim.
Ignore that and get a formal claimform.
Either not defend, not meet directions or go to a court hearing and lose (highly unlikely when following the advice here)
Get judgement awarded against you
Ignore this and not pay in full within 30 days.

Only once all that has happened is a CCJ registered against you.
 

[AceEagles]

What is the reason for not giving an email address?

[honeybee13]

Because they can pester you for free.

And if it ever goes to court, they can send you important documents at one minute to midnight the night before the hearing, so you don't have time to look at them.

[AceEagles]

I read the Ignore thread that your reply linked to and it recommends that a letter be sent:

You should write to the car park owner - the supermarket etc - not the parking company- with a brief letter denying that any money is owed at all. Also ask the car park owner if they have given authority to the car park operator to bring any legal action against you.

You should also complain and asked them why they are prepared to sell their reputation by treating their customers as enemies – and wouldn't it be better that the £160 odd, which the private parking company is trying to take from you were spent in their shop/supermarket rather than going to a wholly non-productive company such as [X X X name the company X X X]?

The car park owner will also realise that it is their reputation which is associated with their draconian action - not the parking company which is merely acting as a fall-boy.

Should I do this or just ignore it entirely?

[lolerz]

NO EMAIL.

Not only for the reasons outlined above.

CPR Rules state that PAPLOC's can't be served by email unless you give them express consent to this (just giving them your email address is *not* express consent), meaning that they have to be served by post.

Either way, a court claim can't arrive by email either. The courts will send that by post. They'll file it to your old address and you'll have no idea until a couple months later when all of a sudden a CCJ is on your credit file because they've obtained what we call a backdoor CCJ.

In easier terms, stick to proper post for legal/contractual disputes.
 

2 minutes ago, AceEagles said:

Should I do this or just ignore it entirely?

In this case, ignore entirely. That is more useful for more "normal" private parking invoices.

  

[AndyOrch]

SERVICE BY EMAIL

Rules 6.3(1)(d) and 6.20(1)(d) of the Civil Procedural Rules (“CPR”) allow service by email of claim forms and other documents; these Rules are supplemented by Practice Direction (“PD”) 6A. In accordance with PD 6A.4, in order for service by email to be valid, the recipient party must have previously indicated in writing to the party serving that they are willing to accept service by electronic means and provided a fax number, email address or other electronic identification to which it must be sent. The PD also requires the sender to ask if there are any restrictions on the size of documents that can be received by email.

 

.

[FTMDave]

Lolerz is spot on.

The limitation period is six months for prosecution in the Magistrates' Court.

Six years for bringing a civil claim.

I know you'll be thinking "it can't be both" but never underestimate the PPCs' contempt for the law and their utter greed.

In this case there is no supermarket chain, etc., so just ignore.

[dx100uk]

can we have the PCN bothsides to one mass pdf please

previous uploads keep being made unavailable ??

dx

 

 

[AceEagles]

Thanks, much appreciated.

 

 

2024-05-24 APCOA ANPR Penalty Charge Notice under Byelaws (2).pdf

[dx100uk]

just type no need to keep hitting quote.

it makes finding where your reply is on a phone screen so very difficult and makes a thread twice as long as it needs to be.

thread totally tidied now.

thanks for the pcn

[dx100uk]

would be interesting to see the contract with network rail? that allows them to issue Penalty Charge Notices enforcing railway byelaws.

this actually could be enforceable but not by APCOA!! only by the TOC.

but as they have not sent the PCN themselves...

dx